Of Human Bondage (26 page)

  "I'm quite frightened of you," she said. "You're so
sarcastic."

  Then she asked him playfully whether he had not had
any love affairs at Heidelberg. Without thinking, he frankly
answered that he had not; but she refused to believe him.

  "How secretive you are!" she said. "At your age is
it likely?"

  He blushed and laughed.

  "You want to know too much," he said.

  "Ah, I thought so," she laughed triumphantly. "Look
at him blushing."

  He was pleased that she should think he had been a
sad dog, and he changed the conversation so as to make her believe
he had all sorts of romantic things to conceal. He was angry with
himself that he had not. There had been no opportunity.

  Miss Wilkinson was dissatisfied with her lot. She
resented having to earn her living and told Philip a long story of
an uncle of her mother's, who had been expected to leave her a
fortune but had married his cook and changed his will. She hinted
at the luxury of her home and compared her life in Lincolnshire,
with horses to ride and carriages to drive in, with the mean
dependence of her present state. Philip was a little puzzled when
he mentioned this afterwards to Aunt Louisa, and she told him that
when she knew the Wilkinsons they had never had anything more than
a pony and a dog-cart; Aunt Louisa had heard of the rich uncle, but
as he was married and had children before Emily was born she could
never have had much hope of inheriting his fortune. Miss Wilkinson
had little good to say of Berlin, where she was now in a situation.
She complained of the vulgarity of German life, and compared it
bitterly with the brilliance of Paris, where she had spent a number
of years. She did not say how many. She had been governess in the
family of a fashionable portrait-painter, who had married a Jewish
wife of means, and in their house she had met many distinguished
people. She dazzled Philip with their names. Actors from the
Comedie Francaise had come to the house frequently, and Coquelin,
sitting next her at dinner, had told her he had never met a
foreigner who spoke such perfect French. Alphonse Daudet had come
also, and he had given her a copy of Sappho: he had promised to
write her name in it, but she had forgotten to remind him. She
treasured the volume none the less and she would lend it to Philip.
Then there was Maupassant. Miss Wilkinson with a rippling laugh
looked at Philip knowingly. What a man, but what a writer! Hayward
had talked of Maupassant, and his reputation was not unknown to
Philip.

  "Did he make love to you?" he asked.

  The words seemed to stick funnily in his throat, but
he asked them nevertheless. He liked Miss Wilkinson very much now,
and was thrilled by her conversation, but he could not imagine
anyone making love to her.

  "What a question!" she cried. "Poor Guy, he made
love to every woman he met. It was a habit that he could not break
himself of."

  She sighed a little, and seemed to look back
tenderly on the past.

  "He was a charming man," she murmured.

  A greater experience than Philip's would have
guessed from these words the probabilities of the encounter: the
distinguished writer invited to luncheon en famille, the governess
coming in sedately with the two tall girls she was teaching; the
introduction:

  "Notre Miss Anglaise."

  "Mademoiselle."

  And the luncheon during which the Miss Anglaise sat
silent while the distinguished writer talked to his host and
hostess.

  But to Philip her words called up much more romantic
fancies.

  "Do tell me all about him," he said excitedly.

  "There's nothing to tell," she said truthfully, but
in such a manner as to convey that three volumes would scarcely
have contained the lurid facts. "You mustn't be curious."

  She began to talk of Paris. She loved the boulevards
and the Bois. There was grace in every street, and the trees in the
Champs Elysees had a distinction which trees had not elsewhere.
They were sitting on a stile now by the high-road, and Miss
Wilkinson looked with disdain upon the stately elms in front of
them. And the theatres: the plays were brilliant, and the acting
was incomparable. She often went with Madame Foyot, the mother of
the girls she was educating, when she was trying on clothes.

  "Oh, what a misery to be poor!" she cried. "These
beautiful things, it's only in Paris they know how to dress, and
not to be able to afford them! Poor Madame Foyot, she had no
figure. Sometimes the dressmaker used to whisper to me: `Ah,
Mademoiselle, if she only had your figure.' "

  Philip noticed then that Miss Wilkinson had a robust
form and was proud of it.

  "Men are so stupid in England. They only think of
the face. The French, who are a nation of lovers, know how much
more important the figure is."

  Philip had never thought of such things before, but
he observed now that Miss Wilkinson's ankles were thick and
ungainly. He withdrew his eyes quickly.

  "You should go to France. Why don't you go to Paris
for a year? You would learn French, and it would – deniaiser
you."

  "What is that?" asked Philip.

  She laughed slyly.

  "You must look it out in the dictionary. Englishmen
do not know how to treat women. They are so shy. Shyness is
ridiculous in a man. They don't know how to make love. They can't
even tell a woman she is charming without looking foolish."

  Philip felt himself absurd. Miss Wilkinson evidently
expected him to behave very differently; and he would have been
delighted to say gallant and witty things, but they never occurred
to him; and when they did he was too much afraid of making a fool
of himself to say them.

  "Oh, I love Paris," sighed Miss Wilkinson. "But I
had to go to Berlin. I was with the Foyots till the girls married,
and then I could get nothing to do, and I had the chance of this
post in Berlin. They're relations of Madame Foyot, and I accepted.
I had a tiny apartment in the Rue Breda, on the cinquieme: it
wasn't at all respectable. You know about the Rue Breda – ces
dames, you know."

  Philip nodded, not knowing at all what she meant,
but vaguely suspecting, and anxious she should not think him too
ignorant.

  "But I didn't care. Je suis libre, n'est-ce pas?"
She was very fond of speaking French, which indeed she spoke well.
"Once I had such a curious adventure there."

  She paused a little and Philip pressed her to tell
it.

  "You wouldn't tell me yours in Heidelberg," she
said.

  "They were so unadventurous," he retorted.

  "I don't know what Mrs. Carey would say if she knew
the sort of things we talk about together."

  "You don't imagine I shall tell her."

  "Will you promise?"

  When he had done this, she told him how an
art-student who had a room on the floor above her – but she
interrupted herself.

  "Why don't you go in for art? You paint so
prettily."

  "Not well enough for that."

  "That is for others to judge. Je m'y connais, and I
believe you have the making of a great artist."

  "Can't you see Uncle William's face if I suddenly
told him I wanted to go to Paris and study art?"

  "You're your own master, aren't you?"

  "You're trying to put me off. Please go on with the
story." Miss Wilkinson, with a little laugh, went on. The
art-student had passed her several times on the stairs, and she had
paid no particular attention. She saw that he had fine eyes, and he
took off his hat very politely. And one day she found a letter
slipped under her door. It was from him. He told her that he had
adored her for months, and that he waited about the stairs for her
to pass. Oh, it was a charming letter! Of course she did not reply,
but what woman could help being flattered? And next day there was
another letter! It was wonderful, passionate, and touching. When
next she met him on the stairs she did not know which way to look.
And every day the letters came, and now he begged her to see him.
He said he would come in the evening, vers neuf heures, and she did
not know what to do. Of course it was impossible, and he might ring
and ring, but she would never open the door; and then while she was
waiting for the tinkling of the bell, all nerves, suddenly he stood
before her. She had forgotten to shut the door when she came
in.

  "C'etait une fatalite."

  "And what happened then?" asked Philip.

  "That is the end of the story," she replied, with a
ripple of laughter.

  Philip was silent for a moment. His heart beat
quickly, and strange emotions seemed to be hustling one another in
his heart. He saw the dark staircase and the chance meetings, and
he admired the boldness of the letters – oh, he would never have
dared to do that – and then the silent, almost mysterious entrance.
It seemed to him the very soul of romance.

  "What was he like?"

  "Oh, he was handsome. Charmant garcon."

  "Do you know him still?"

  Philip felt a slight feeling of irritation as he
asked this.

  "He treated me abominably. Men are always the same.
You're heartless, all of you."

  "I don't know about that," said Philip, not without
embarrassment.

  "Let us go home," said Miss Wilkinson.

  Philip could not get Miss Wilkinson's story out of
his head. It was clear enough what she meant even though she cut it
short, and he was a little shocked. That sort of thing was all very
well for married women, he had read enough French novels to know
that in France it was indeed the rule, but Miss Wilkinson was
English and unmarried; her father was a clergyman. Then it struck
him that the art-student probably was neither the first nor the
last of her lovers, and he gasped: he had never looked upon Miss
Wilkinson like that; it seemed incredible that anyone should make
love to her. In his ingenuousness he doubted her story as little as
he doubted what he read in books, and he was angry that such
wonderful things never happened to him. It was humiliating that if
Miss Wilkinson insisted upon his telling her of his adventures in
Heidelberg he would have nothing to tell. It was true that he had
some power of invention, but he was not sure whether he could
persuade her that he was steeped in vice; women were full of
intuition, he had read that, and she might easily discover that he
was fibbing. He blushed scarlet as he thought of her laughing up
her sleeve.

  Miss Wilkinson played the piano and sang in a rather
tired voice; but her songs, Massenet, Benjamin Goddard, and Augusta
Holmes, were new to Philip; and together they spent many hours at
the piano. One day she wondered if he had a voice and insisted on
trying it. She told him he had a pleasant baritone and offered to
give him lessons. At first with his usual bashfulness he refused,
but she insisted, and then every morning at a convenient time after
breakfast she gave him an hour's lesson. She had a natural gift for
teaching, and it was clear that she was an excellent governess. She
had method and firmness. Though her French accent was so much part
of her that it remained, all the mellifluousness of her manner left
her when she was engaged in teaching. She put up with no nonsense.
Her voice became a little peremptory, and instinctively she
suppressed inattention and corrected slovenliness. She knew what
she was about and put Philip to scales and exercises.

  When the lesson was over she resumed without effort
her seductive smiles, her voice became again soft and winning, but
Philip could not so easily put away the pupil as she the pedagogue;
and this impression convicted with the feelings her stories had
aroused in him. He looked at her more narrowly. He liked her much
better in the evening than in the morning. In the morning she was
rather lined and the skin of her neck was just a little rough. He
wished she would hide it, but the weather was very warm just then
and she wore blouses which were cut low. She was very fond of
white; in the morning it did not suit her. At night she often
looked very attractive, she put on a gown which was almost a dinner
dress, and she wore a chain of garnets round her neck; the lace
about her bosom and at her elbows gave her a pleasant softness, and
the scent she wore (at Blackstable no one used anything but Eau de
Cologne, and that only on Sundays or when suffering from a sick
headache) was troubling and exotic. She really looked very young
then.